Pickups and small vehicles towing - Overloading......

[Dave_L]

Anybody notice the sheer amount of vehicles (transit and crew-cab pickups etc) that are towing over-large loads, especially on a Friday afternoon and Monday morning - usually a mini-digger?

It seems as though VOSA have woken up to this.......

Towing Regulations Confusion!

Also, anybody noticed the explosion of trailer towing training outfits out there at the moment? The licensing regime changed some time ago, prohibiting people from towing trailer unless they pass a seperate test. It would seem many utility contractors & recovery service operators are having to invest in some pretty expensive training? I guess, us, as Joe Public are paying indirectly for this........

[flowjoe]

Spent a charming three hours with several polish drivers and a Turk in a VOSA compound only last week.

Good job i wasn`t busy

Bless em,

[Dave_L]

.....and how did you get on Joe? Was it a long walk home?? :p

[flowjoe]

Not as far as the Turkish chap had to go:)

[Dave_L]

Not as far as the Turkish chap had to go:)

Ah, I'll take that as a yes then, you had to do the "Walk of shame!"

[flowjoe]

The biggest problem is deciding which of the fleet to send down to remove the excess weight from the van.

Before you know it we could have their compound full of our vehicles

Hired a van in the end. :laugh:

[Tommy]

Is there a minimum age, when you are generally able to drive with a large trailer after taking the necessary training?

[GB_Groundworks]

passed your test after 97 limited to a 750kg trailer, if you hold a license then you can do your trailer test and be legal.

i'm in the process of trying to get one of these to tow behind my john deere, fed up of paying to move my machines upto 7 tons or risking it with 4 ton on the back of my navara.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws....8591971

[ambient]

will that be legal then or are you restricted as to what you can or cant do or do vosa not bother farmers

[GB_Groundworks]

they tend not to bother unless your doing a lot of road miles then you need to run them on white diesel have a tacho etc. most my works within 15 miles of base so i wont be doing that many journeys. plus having a proper farm with defra registration helps.

my dad asked me to pick up our 3 ton the other day, so plant trailer on the back of my pickup and went and got it, so ended up with 4 ton on the back of a vehicle rated at 2.6 ton towing limit and fed up of taking a risk. will go and research the actual legislation but far safer with a 8 ton tractor pulling 4 ton than my navara.

just trying to find the relevant information and its very difficult,

it would appear that

Agricultural Tractor (mounted on wheels) & Trailer (Cat.F){Cat.F does not have a +E sub category}

[Cat.B (Car) allows you to drive Cat.F on the public highway -

Cat.F is granted when a Cat.B test is passed]

Cat. F does not cover other tractors, such as council tractors, golf course tractors, etc.

For driving licence purposes category f does not have a weight limit,

But beware there is a weight limit under construction and use regulations:

C&U: Maximum weight = 24 390 kg, So a loaded trailer with a 12000kg capacity,

unladen weight of 5900 kg towed by a tractor weighing 6500 kg

would be overweight for the public highway.*

Agricultural tractors for C+U and STGO purposes may be defined as

Motor Tractors (<7370kg) or Locomotives (>7370kg)

[1991 advice: The minimum age for driving an AMV / land locomotive over 7370kg unladen weight is 21 years.]

Agricultural motor vehicle maximum length = 12 metres

When towing 2 or more trailers maximum length of towing AMV reduces to 9.2 metres

Agricultural vehicle combination (one trailer) maximum length = 18.75 metres

Agricultural vehicle combination (two trailers) maximum length = 25.9 metres

Only one trailer may exceed 7 metres

A locomotive may tow three trailers - all trailers must be 7 metres or less

When towing 2 or more trailers they must be unladen

Agricultural vehicle combination maximum width = 2.55 metres

This may be exceeded providing conditions are complied with*.

2.55 - 3 m = 20 mph speed limit

3 - 3.5 m = 20 mph speed limit + police notification (24 hours before journey)

wasn't just me struggling then

quote from roadtransport.com:

Should you want to find out the legal GVW of an agricultural tractor and trailer combination as set out by transport law today you will have quite a job on your hands. We trawled through the websites of Vosa, Defra, the DVLA and the HA and were unable to extract a clear figure. Finally we tracked down the Vosa technical officer on this matter who explained that the maximum legal train weight for such a combination is 24,390kg.

from farmers weekly

Is it right that it is legal to move a digger on a low loader using red diesel if you use the tractor at the new site, but not legal to move agricultural equipment - say, a seed drill - and then attach it to another tractor at the new site?

Yes. If the tractor that tows the digger is to be used on site, then it may use red.
If the vehicle taking a seed drill to a site is not being used on the land, too, then it is effectively being used for nothing other than haulage work, for which either a more appropriate vehicle or a tractor fuelled with white must be used.

so if i tow my digger to the site then use my tractor to rotivate or with dump trailer on site then its appears to be ok.

so complicated

[Dave_L]

my dad asked me to pick up our 3 ton the other day, so plant trailer on the back of my pickup and went and got it, so ended up with 4 ton on the back of a vehicle rated at 2.6 ton towing limit and fed up of taking a risk. will go and research the actual legislation but far safer with a 8 ton tractor pulling 4 ton than my navara.

Holy crap!!!!

And there's us worrying about having a 5t slew, a Bomag 2.3t twin drum roller, ped roller and our 17t paver-finisher all loaded on our low loader Wednesday afternoon!

(We were within our GVW, but the axle loadings might have been a bit suspect!)

[GB_Groundworks]

theoretically speaking btw if vosa is reading this haha

[Dave_L]

I'm sure we were fine! It's just the 'unknown' without your own private weighbridge!

[GB_Groundworks]

yeah i was talking about me haha

its get hard when you start factoring in things like fuel and buckets and water in the rollers etc soon adds up.

we had a 300 ton crane the other day and talking to the driver from ainscough come plating day then have to drop every surplus bit of weight to running the crane. like the boards for the stabiliser legs, extra chains, blocks, the hydraulic oil the counter weights etc to get it under the 80 ton limit.

there are a few public weigh bridges but its a bit of a pain everytime you load up. most experience truck drivers can tell though.

[Mikey_C]

I always use the local scrapyards weigh bridge to measure the trailer i tow, that way it always comes in lighter than expected! :;):